


Echoes

by Byrcca



Series: Fixed It For Ya! (You Know What You Did/Didn’t Do) [2]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Book 15: Echoes, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 20:54:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14410374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byrcca/pseuds/Byrcca
Summary: A couple of scenes I thought should have been in book 15, Echoes. There was room! SPOILERS FOR THE NOVEL, duh.





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Book 15 of the original run is just before book 16 (fancy that!), SEVEN OF NINE, in which Tom and B’Elanna are finally a couple (sort of, sigh…Plot Twist!!) so I expected more P/T. I expected some/any P/T. I expected Tom to at least hold B’Elanna’s hand when he was afraid, instead of Kes’. Sigh… 
> 
> There was more P/T in book 14, though it was written by Christie Golden so yeah. Echoes is the one with the multiple universes and the heaps of people, (including some _Voyager_ crew) suddenly appearing as they’re shifted to the universe to the left (or is it the right) every 2.5 hours. Eventually, they run out of planets to land on and end up floating in space in a planet-sized/shaped mass, then being beamed onto that universe’s ship. Ergo, we have multiples of our fav peeps, some exactly the same, some with slight differences.
> 
> I liked this book. It’s more old scifi than most and doesn’t get bogged down in a boring space battle or a megalomaniac bad guy.

Time: The ninety-second shift  
Location: 1234 parallel universes to the right of ours 

 

Other-Tom was arguing with Other-B’Elanna. They were standing off to the side of the room, near the replicator, but Tom didn’t think they were debating their lunch order. Other-Chakotay had tried to intervene, but not even his—Tom assumed they were all virtually the same—steadying presence and (occasionally) condescending wisdom was enough to calm her when she was in full temper. _Whatever you did, you should have known better by now,_ Tom decided. It wasn’t that B’Elanna was touchy, but she had her moods, which were easy to read and not to be messed with if one valued their head. 

There were now three of each of the away team: the set that belonged on this _Voyager_ , and two that they’d beamed up from Birsiba. Really, the last set should have stayed put on the ship two universes over, but they hadn’t. His _Voyager_ had beamed up the first set of doppelgängers almost six hours ago, and that had been enough of a shock. But half an hour ago, when they’d picked up four Federation signatures from among the lifesigns on the planet, Tom had rolled his eyes. Obviously, these versions of themselves were a little dumber than the originals. Or more bold. 

“Tom!”

Tom’s head jerked up and whipped around to see B’Elanna run past him and fling herself into his—but not _his_ —arms. He looked closer and realized she wasn’t B’Elanna either, at least not the one he knew. She was taller, the top of her head coming to his eyebrows, and her voice was huskier, her hair gloriously long and wild. The other Tom hugged her closely, then brought his hand to her hair and smoothed it down, kissed her forehead, then her mouth in a PDA that made his—Tom’s—eyes pop. He closed his eyes and kissed her forehead again, and wrapped his arms around her. 

“Shhh, _be’nal_ ,” Tom heard him say, “I’m safe. We’re safe.”

 _be’nal._ Tom knew enough Klingon to know that word meant wife. He stared at the couple as they reassured each other, and realized his mouth was hanging open. He closed it. He looked away, right at B’Elanna—his B’Elanna, the differences were obvious and immediate—and caught her staring at him, her mouth open. She closed it with an almost audible snap and glanced at the couple, then at him, then deliberately turned her back.

**

Torres approached her, her smile more a smirk, as if she knew something B’Elanna didn’t. Which, B’Elanna supposed, she did. She kept stealing glances at her, and not just because of her display with Tom—Paris, B’Elanna reminded herself, he wasn’t her Tom. Their Tom, she corrected.

B’Elanna busied herself with her panel display, checking the readout, but she knew when the other woman arrived at her elbow. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. “Is he your mate?” her other self asked without preamble.

B’Elanna flicked a glance at her, her eyes caught by her brow ridges. They were more prominent than her own, more deeply sculpted, and along with the long, curly hair they gave her a somewhat demonic look. Her dark eyes burned brightly. B’Elanna got her eyes from her father, her mother’s being blue, and she wanted to ask her about her parents, about her father. She did not want to discuss Tom Paris! Either Tom Paris. Any? They’d have to wear numbers soon. 

“Paris,” Torres clarified, as if B’Elanna didn’t know who she was talking about. “Are you mates?” B’Elanna glanced at her again and frowned. Really, this woman looked far more Klingon than she did: she was taller for one thing, her frame larger and more muscled. Then there were the prominent brow ridges. She was more _B’Elanna_ than _Torres,_ she supposed. 

“Of course not,” B’Elanna said shortly. 

The other woman laughed. “Do your tastes go more to Harry Kim?” she asked. “He is soft and sweet as a Tarkarian plum. You are a coward, B’Elanna,” she said simply.

B’Elanna’s head snapped up at that, her temper, which was already stretched thin, riled. “It’s not the same here,” she said. 

“Isn’t it? You want him.” B’Elanna stayed stubbornly silent, and her other self leaned closer. “I am you, remember. I know we want him. Take him.”

B’Elanna expelled a harsh breath and slammed her hand onto the console. She whipped her head around and stared at Torres, but she was smiling, not intimidated in the least. Her eyes were drawn to the ridges on her forehead again. “It’s not that simple.”

“He likes them,” Torres commented, “if that’s what’s holding you back. He likes that we’re Klingon.” 

B’Elanna frowned, not prepared to believe it. “Your Tom might—” she began, but Torres cut her off.

“Seventy human females on this ship and he only watches you. He wants you, you want him. He is yours to claim.”

B’Elanna’s gut tightened in a surge of warmth and longing. She flicked a glance toward Tom—both Toms, engaged in their own tête-à-tête on the other side of the room. “We have work to do,” she said. 

**

Tom looked over at the two B’Elanna’s (a fantasy he’d occasionally indulged in in the last year and a half) and froze. She was looking at him, and she had a decidedly predatory gleam in her eye. The brow ridges threw him a little, but intrigued him too. He wondered how different she was from his B’Elanna. _In your dreams, Paris,_ he thought. She wasn’t his, not really, but he felt a renewed hope. He’d been intrigued by the Klingon stuff since Sakari, by the half-Klingon woman since long before then. But this version of B’Elanna was even more Klingon than the one he knew, and he found himself wondering about the differences between them. 

“She’s pretty incredible in any version, isn’t she?” Paris commented, nodding toward the two B’Elanna’s. 

“They don’t look like they’re getting along very well.”

Paris laughed. “Why would you expect them to?”

Tom looked at his twin, flicked a glance back at the two women. “So, how long have you two…”

“Been mates? Been married?” Paris offered. “Do you have a young Vulcan on your ship named Vorik?”

“Aw, shit!” Tom closed his eyes and felt heat wash over him, remembered fear and arousal and crushing disappointment. “Yeah,” he said.

“So I guess it went a little differently with you?” Paris’ eyebrow was raised in a question.

“I guess so,” Tom agreed. “Were you on a planet, Sakari, looking for gallicite?”

Paris shook his head. “We were in a shuttlecraft, checking out a nebula. Vorik was supposed to come with us, but he attacked B’Elanna the day before and she...let’s just say he wasn’t in any state to go anywhere after she was done with him.”

Tom snorted. He’d believe it. “Yeah,” he agreed. “So…?”

“So, I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with her until, well, until it was done. I just thought she finally believed how much I loved her.” He shook his head. “By the time we were finished our mission and back on the ship, we’d taken the oath.”

“Oh,” Tom said. 

“Not so smooth for you, I take it?”

Tom laughed. “You could say that. We were underground, in a cave system tracking some gallicite readings.” Paris nodded. “Neelix’s piton malfunctioned while we were repelling down a steep gorge, and he fell. He knocked into B’Elanna and they both plummeted down the cliff. Scared the hell out of me.”

“Who’s Neelix?” Paris asked, and Tom stared at him. Another difference. 

“Our cook.” At Paris’ raised eyebrow, he laughed. “And native guide, and morale officer.” He pointed him out across the room, talking with Captain Janeway and a cluster of Keses.

Paris nodded. “So when do you get to the good part,” he asked with a smile.

“There really wasn’t any good part,” Tom replied ruefully. “I think the fall, the adrenaline, kickstarted a...whatever it was, in B’Elanna.”

“A mating urge?” Paris offered. His eyes were twinkling with suppressed laughter. 

“Yeah, I guess so. She became agitated, aggressive—”

“Sounds like a regular Saturday night,” Paris grinned.

Tom looked at him with irritation. _Am I really this much of an asshole?_ he thought. 

“Yeah, you are,” Paris answered, reading his mind. 

He didn’t mention the bite. Some things he wouldn’t discuss even with himself. “She ran off down the tunnels and I went after her. We ended up getting trapped together and she, well, she threw herself at me. Literally, a couple of times. But I knew if I gave in,” he shook his head, “that she would never talk to me again.”

“You sanctimonious son of a bitch,” Paris laughed, “always making your own life harder than it has to be.” He shook his head.

“Yeah,” Tom agreed. 

“So how’d that work out for you?”

Tom smiled ruefully. “Well, she’s talking to me again. We’re friends. We work out together.” The other man raised an eyebrow. “We have dinner together occasionally.” 

“In your quarters?”

Tom sighed. “Messhall.”

“With Harry?”

“Not always,” Tom bristled. “You know, you’ve probably just set me back a couple of months.”

Paris laughed again and shook his head, and Tom noticed the scar on his jaw: a perfect crescent, just below his left ear. Jesus. It was all he could do to keep from rubbing the same spot on his own face. 

“I do have some advice for you,” he said. His eyes were flashing mischief, and Tom expected him—himself?—to say something witty and embarrassing. He wasn’t disappointed. “Hit the gym, bulk up. You’re going to need all your strength and stamina.” 

Tom laughed, he couldn’t help it. He’d always liked his own sense of humour, after all. He glanced up to find his B’Elanna glaring at him. Great. “Well that helped,” he said. 

Paris followed Tom’s line of sight and was treated to a scowl of his own. He smiled. “Another thing,” he said, leaning conspiratorially toward Tom. Being downright obvious about it. “Stop shaving so often. She likes it when you’re scruffy.”

Tom just shook his head. “Any other sage advice?”

“She has this ticklish spot…” He was staring at his wife.

Tom groaned. 

His other self glanced at him, laughed again and clapped him on the shoulder. “We should get started,” he smiled. 

_Yeah_ , Tom thought. _I really should._

****

Time: The ninety-fourth shift  
Location: 2 parallel universes to the right of ours

“Eight minutes until the shift, Captain,” Harry Kim said. His fingers flew over his console checking and rechecking their computations, making sure everything was ready for their one attempt to seal the space-time rift. All of the _Voyagers_ in all of the universes, thousands of them, perhaps millions, were going to fly into the rift at the same time, all headed for the same point, venting warp plasma. The resulting explosion should seal the breach and reset time. They would all cease to exist in _this_ now but, hopefully, reappear just before they received the distress call that had brought them to Birsiba. And with the rift sealed, there would be no reason for the distress call. They would just continue on with their lives. 

At least, that was what should happen, Tom thought. B’Elanna had come up with the plan, both of them, likely all the B’Elannas in all the universes, and he trusted her brains. Their brains. Because if one was inspirationally brilliant, two working together could solve the riddle of the...universes. They would know in eight minutes. Well, they’d know if they failed. Or maybe not, because they’d be dead. Semantics: if they were successful they'd cease to exist, if they failed they’d simply die. 

He looked around the bridge, so familiar yet not his bridge. The other Tom Paris, the one who belonged here, was at the helm checking their route. They’d plotted it together, worked out the math, and he didn’t need him anymore. He spared a thought for his own _Voyager_ and hoped they’d picked up another away team because while Culhane and Baytart were competent pilots, Tom was the best. And they needed him. He felt frustrated and useless. 

B’Elanna was with her twin (close enough) at the engineering station, Chakotay at the back of the bridge near Harry at ops. Tom wasn’t going to stand sentry over his other self. Eight minutes. And until seventeen hours ago, he’d thought he’d had time, a lifetime (ha) of time. Seventy-five years. Seventy-two. His eyes flickered back to B’Elanna, his B’Elanna, and he decided. 

He approached her and reached for her, his palm sliding from her upper arm down to her elbow, his long fingers wrapping around the firm muscle. “Can we talk?”

She glanced at him, and her other self looked up and their eyes met. He couldn’t see a difference between them, but he could sense it. “Go,” she said. “We’re ready.” She looked at Tom and quirked her crooked smile, then turned back to the display on the console. B’Elanna nodded and they stepped into the captain’s ready room. Fuck protocol. 

The door slid shut behind them and she turned to him. She looked sad. “Tom—”

He reached for her, pushed her back against the wall and kissed her. She froze for half a second then pressed against him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him back. His hands cupped her face, his fingers trailing over her brow ridges and he thought, _this is so easy, what held me back for so long_?

Her fingers were in his hair, tugging. He raised his head, and they just stared at each other, then she laughed. “It’s about time,” she said. 

Tom smiled back and leaned in for another kiss, sliding his hands over her shoulders and down her back to cup her ass. He pulled her tight against him and held her while he kissed her until he ran out of air. “I love you,” he said. 

“You do?” He nodded, kissing her cheek, her nose, her forehead ridges one by one. “For how long?” she asked. 

He pulled back. The sadness was back in her eyes. “Oh, three...four years,” he said with a grin. 

She shook her head. “You picked a great time to tell me.”

“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “I figured I’d wait until we were about to die.”

She looked fierce for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. “I love you, too,” she said with a nod. She pushed him away and glanced toward the door, then around the room. “Where’s the head?”

Tom looked puzzled. “You can’t hold it for seven minutes?”

She sent him that look he cherished, a mixture of fondness and exasperation. The one that said, _for such a smart guy, you sure can be dumb sometimes_. She spied a door across the room, grabbed Tom by the hand and pulled him toward it. “I’ve been holding it for years, Tom.” 

And he understood. He unzipped his jacket as they skirted Janeway’s desk (though that was an interesting idea, too), and let go of her hand to shrug it off. She took the opportunity to do the same. The bathroom was small but not _too small_ , and he helped her pull her shirt and undershirt over her head. Her breasts bounced and he was mesmerized. He reached for her, but she shoved his hands away, grabbing the hem of his shirt and pushing it up his chest. He tugged it over his head and dropped it on the floor, then unfastened his pants and shoved them down his legs. She was already pulling hers off, and then she stood there, naked in front of him. He forgot to breathe.

She reached for him and kissed him, her hands running along his ribs, down to his ass, her body fitting against him. She was soft and warm, her skin like silk, and he had to taste her, touch every part of her. But there was no time. He’d been an idiot. He dipped his head, aiming for her breast, but she pushed him away again. “Now, Tom. There’s no time. I need you now.”

And he stared into her eyes as he lifted her onto the short counter, stepped between her thighs and slowly pushed into her. She whimpered, and her eyes closed as her arms and legs came around him and gathered him closer, and they both stilled a moment, panting. Then she was kissing him again, nipping her way along his shoulder and throat toward his jaw, and he started to move. “More,” she breathed. So he gave it to her: a lifetime of need and desire and love condensed into a few moments of joining. It was all they had. It wasn’t nearly enough. 

When she gasped and tightened around him, her nails scoring his back, it was over for him, and he drove into her, giving her all he had. Everything. They clung to each other panting and kissing for a few moments, and he stared into her eyes while a sharp sense of loss engulfed him. “We should get back,” B’Elanna said quietly, and Tom smiled.

“Don’t want to miss the end of the universe.” His eyes were warm, and he kissed her again before stepping back and hauling up his pants. He lifted her off the counter (she was a little stuck and they laughed at that), and handed over her slacks and underwear, and they dressed quickly and in silence. 

When they stepped back onto the bridge Tom saw that the other Tom had turned in his seat and was staring at the other B’Elanna. Tom had let go of his B’Elanna in deference to bridge protocol, but when the other Tom’s gaze shifted to them, when he took in how they had just appeared together and how rumpled they must look, he decided, _fuck it_ and slipped his arm back around B’Elanna’s waist and hugged her tight. The Tom at the helm nodded and smiled a little, then looked back at his own B’Elanna. 

“Ten seconds until the shift,” Harry called, his voice calm and steady. “Five...four...three...two...one...shift!”

And Tom saw all the other _Voyagers_ and all the other planets on the viewscreen stretching out into infinity, millions of Toms and B’Elannas, all loving each other, some aware of it and some not. The Toms who hadn’t crashed that shuttle, and the ones who hadn’t lied. The who’d never joined the Maquis, and the ones who hadn’t been caught and sent to prison. The Toms who had rejected Janeway’s offer, and the ones who had been killed a thousand ways from Sunday, here in the Delta Quadrant. And he held B’Elanna more tightly and he thanked his lucky stars that he was _this_ Tom, right now. 

“Venting plasma now!” this ship’s B’Elanna said, and a red stream of antimatter shot from each _Voyager_ to join into one large stream headed toward the same point. The ship rocked, and Tom pulled B’Elanna close kissing the side of her head and whispering in her ear, “Remember I love you.”

She turned to look at him as Harry shouted, “Impact in two seconds.” They were bathed in red light as the antimatter exploded, and Tom had time to think she looked beautiful, then the other B’Elanna shouted triumphantly, “The rift is sealed!”

His B’Elanna nodded. “I love—” she began, and then there was nothing.

****

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so there's no way THAT could have made it into the book but we couldn’t have had a kiss? A lingering look of desire and regret? A million _Voyagers_ and we get nothing? To quote baby Naomi Wildman, “Pah!”


End file.
